Third Sunday of Lent

Suggested formula for recognition of Indigenous people and their land

Today we stand in footsteps millennia old.

May we acknowledge the traditional owners

whose cultures and customs have nurtured,

and continue to nurture,

this land since men and women awoke from the great dream.

We honour the presence of these ancestors

who reside in the imagination of this land

and whose irrepressible spirituality

flows through all creation.

Jonathan Hill

Second Sunday of Lent

‘To see the world in a grain of sand and heaven in a wild flower, hold infinity in the palm of your hand and eternity in an hour.’ [William Blake]

Today’s gospel story invites us to look again and see things in a new way - to see Jesus, ourselves and sisters and brothers as God’s beloved and to see Creation as God’s gift. Lent is our opportunity to liberate the imagination. We are offered the gift of renewed sight. We can see God within ourselves, each other and in Creation and recognise their sacredness and dignity. 

First Sunday in Lent

’Who do you think you are?’ Today we return to our origins and remember who we are, how we are meant to be. We see where life was meant to be shared [Genesis], God's word was perverted and God’s image in people (others and ourselves) was disfigured and maimed. We are inundated with competing ideas about life, how to live, and many distortions of God’s image. 

Seventh Sunday of the Year

A young lad was told by his father, who was going away on business, to think what the father would do normally to help the mother around the house in terms of household tasks while he was away. On his return, the father asked the mother what the boy had done. She replied that it was very strange because ‘straight after breakfast he made himself another cup of coffee, went into the living room, put on some loud music, and read the newspaper for half an hour.’ This was not the kind of literalness he hoped the boy would emulate. 

Sixth Sunday of the Year

It can seem as if people are speaking different languages when arguing about what is entailed in being a follower of Jesus. Fr Brian Stoney often asked: do you want to be good or be a follower of Jesus. For many, life needs to be rule based, conforming and top down that preserves a status quo. Others take a Jesus-centred, heart-centred approach of mercy and compassion in the midst of mistakes and growth.